In House Senior Real Estate Lawyer

Senior In-House Real Estate Solicitor | 8+ Years PQE | Property Development | UK

An excellent opportunity for a senior real estate lawyer to join the legal team of one of the UK's most established privately owned property development groups. This role offers end-to-end responsibility across the full development lifecycle, with a focus on complex, high-value transactions and strategic input.

The Business
This privately owned property development group has been operating for over 35 years and has built a substantial and growing presence across the UK, accumulating more than 100 industry awards for design and quality. The business operates across residential housebuilding, strategic land and contractor work for third party investment builders, with housebuilding at its core, delivering thousands of new homes per year and carrying significant growth ambitions.
As a privately owned business, it retains the culture and agility that larger corporate structures rarely allow.

The in-house legal team is split across construction and property. This senior role sits within the property team, working closely with a small number of colleagues and reporting directly to the Head of Legal. You will be expected to operate with a high degree of autonomy, leading your own matters from start to finish and acting as a trusted advisor to stakeholders across the business.

The Role
The focus is on leading development work spanning the full property lifecycle, with an emphasis on the more complex, high-value transactions and strategic workstreams.

Day to day you will:

• Lead site acquisitions and disposals end to end (freehold and leasehold), including due diligence, title review, complex condition precedent management and completions.

• Take the lead on negotiating conditional contracts, options, overage agreements, development agreements and ancillary documentation - often on larger or more intricate schemes.

• Advise on and resolve complex property risk issues across live projects, including title defects, easements, restrictive covenants, access, utilities and environmental matters.

• Support the plot sales team on strategic site set-up, precedent documentation and escalated queries.

• Coordinate legal input on planning conditions and obligations, liaising with external counsel as needed.

• Draft and negotiate commercial contracts (professional services, agency, marketing, NDAs) with a commercial, risk-aware approach.

• Instruct and manage external counsel, with a focus on controlling cost, maintaining quality and ensuring responsiveness.

• Contribute to the team's ongoing development by driving improvements to templates, playbooks and checklists.

• Act as a sounding board for less experienced colleagues, sharing knowledge and providing guidance.

Requirements

• Qualified solicitor with 8+ years PQE.

• Strong real estate background with substantial, demonstrable exposure to property development work, gained in private practice, in-house, or a mix of both.

• Proven ability to handle complex, high-value development transactions independently and pragmatically.

• Commercially astute, confident advising senior internal stakeholders and non-lawyers on complex risk and strategy.

• Highly organised, able to manage a demanding and varied caseload while keeping multiple transactions progressing simultaneously.

• Sound drafting and negotiation skills with exceptional attention to detail.

• Prior in-house experience is preferred but not essential; what matters is the ability to step into a senior role and operate with minimal supervision.

What's on Offer

• A genuinely interesting and varied senior in-house role with true end-to-end ownership and the autonomy to drive matters forward.

• Direct exposure to a high-quality development programme, including the most complex and strategically important projects.

• A collaborative, non-hierarchical team environment within a business that has real scale and ambition.

• The culture and flexibility of a privately owned business, with genuine scope to influence processes and add value from day one.

Apply now for immediate consideration.